Section 306 Does Not Authorize the Deputy Commissioner to Review the Merits of Revenue-Entry Decisions

The petitioners challenged the Deputy Commissioner’s order dated 6 October 2025, made under Section 306 of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, concerning their claimed rights in a residential property.

The contesting respondents relied on a Tahsildar’s order dated 20 February 2026 cancelling the first petitioner’s 2003 Hakku Patra; the petitioners then sought to amend the petition and implead the Tahsildar.

The Court noted that a civil suit had also been instituted and that the Tahsildar’s cancellation order would need to be challenged in properly constituted proceedings.

1. Whether the Deputy Commissioner could exercise power under Section 306 of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, to examine the merits of the decision to admit a person to revenue entries or to annul the khatha.

2. Whether the validity of the Tahsildar’s order cancelling the Hakku Patra could be determined in this petition, and what effect that order had on the pending challenge to the Deputy Commissioner’s order.

Section 306 of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, was the statutory basis for the Deputy Commissioner’s impugned order.

The Court referred to the principle, stated to have been considered by a Coordinate Bench, that the Deputy Commissioner could not use Section 306 to annul a khatha by examining the merits of the underlying revenue-entry decision.

The Tahsildar’s cancellation of the Hakku Patra referred to Rule 108-Z of the Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Rules, 2018, and Section 94C of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964; the merits of that cancellation were left for determination in appropriate proceedings.

The Court recorded that the petitioners’ challenge to the Deputy Commissioner’s order rested on the asserted limits of the Deputy Commissioner’s power under Section 306, and that an earlier interim order had stayed the impugned order on that basis.

However, the subsequent cancellation of the Hakku Patra raised a separate issue requiring consideration of the Tahsildar’s order and the relevant revenue-law provisions.

The Court therefore did not determine the validity of that cancellation in this petition and left the petitioners to challenge it in properly constituted proceedings.

It continued the stay of the Deputy Commissioner’s order dated 6 October 2025 for eight weeks from 17 September 2026.